In Pieces
by Flamingo1
Summary: I think it's OOC. Mild, slight GrissomSara romance. Couple of 'bad' words. Summary: You really shouldn't bring board games to work...it's distracting...Oh, and I managed to do the whole fic without saying the name of the game! is proud of herself


Author's Note: For your reading pleasure I present CSI randomness, GSR (kind of), and, I'm sure, COMPLETE OOC-ness! 'Cause guess what? This is my first CSI fic…yes, I know that scares a lot of people off and that's sad. But if you do choose to read, please drop me a line to say whether or not you liked it!

Spoilers: Um…none, I guess. This is when they're all still together on night shift…damn Ecklie and his…jerk-off-ness.

Rating: Um, the new rating system is stupid…there are a couple of bad words. It's how I talk in real life (shrugs).

Sara Sidle sat in the break room sipping a cup of coffee and contemplating the wooden box that sat on the table top in front of her. It was a plain, unassuming box, rectangular with hinges on one of the shorter sides. A bright green elastic hair band held the two halves of the box firmly closed.

Sara idly brushed a stray strand of hair from her face and slipped the hair tie from the box. She opened the lid to display something of a game board, consisting of a large oval depression on either end of two rows of six circular depressions. One side of the board's depressions were filled with glass bits that looked something like marbles cut in half.

Not really cognizant of what she was doing, Sara started setting up the game, placing four of the half-marbles into each of the twelve circular holes. Just as she dropped the last piece into a spot with a little click-clack, a voice spoke behind her. Startled a little bit, Sara whirled in her seat to glare at a grinning Grissom.

He stepped closer to her in order to look over her shoulder at the wooden board lain out in front of her on the table. Sighing a little bit in exasperation (Sara HATED being startled, especially by Grissom…), she turned to look at the game too. They stood there for a bit, neither saying a word, until Grissom's curiosity overrode the fact that he was rather enjoying where he was standing. He walked around to the other side of the table and sat down, then said:

"So, what is it?"

Sara glanced up at him, a smile forming on her lips. Casually, she picked four of the pieces out of one of the depressions and clacked them together.

"You mean you've never played this before?"

Grissom shook his head, and thought for only a second about how they probably shouldn't be sitting and playing board games in the break room. Aw, what the hell…it was a slow night…and he hadn't gotten to spend nearly enough time with Sara lately, even completely platonically…

Sara placed the little gems back in their hole and sat up a little straighter in her chair, grinning even wider than she had previously.

"All right, each of us has our own side of the board and the bigger hole on your right is your keep (OK, I forgot what the actual term for it was…). On your turn you pick all the gems up out of one hole and start dropping them one by one into each successive hole going counterclockwise until you run out. If the last hole you dropped a gem in already had pieces in it, then you pick those ones up and keep going. Your turn ends when you drop a gem in a hole with no other pieces. Are you with me so far?"

He nodded and grinned.

"You know, you never actually asked me if I wanted to play a game with you…"

She blushed, ducking her head slightly to try and hide it. Talk about your double meanings…hmm…

Finally Grissom let her off the hook.

"So, you were saying…?"

Sara just sat and blinked for a bit, then looked him in the eyes. She smiled and said:

"OK, I'll start first."

She started picking up and moving pieces and the game was on. There was a moment of awkwardness on his first turn when he began to drop a piece in her keep too. Without thinking, she grabbed his wrist and moved it away from her keep, smiling as she did so. Grissom was a little surprised, but merely smiled back at her and kept playing, this time correctly.

It was halfway through the game when Nick walked in, intent on getting a cup of coffee. He stopped when he noticed what the two other occupants of the room were doing, and seated himself on one of the empty chairs to watch them play.

Sara smiled and said "Hi.", while Grissom was too absorbed in taking his turn to do much more than grunt a hello. Nick grinned back at Sara.

"Hey, I play winner."

When Sara raised an eyebrow by way of asking how he knew how to play, Nick shrugged and said:

"I have sisters, we had a couple of these at home."

The game continued silently until Greg showed up, the third person of the evening who was on the hunt for coffee. He enthusiastically plopped himself down in the only available chair and fairly shouted:

"I call playing winner!"

Grissom rolled his eyes at the lab tech's exuberance, Sara laughed, and Nick merely smirked at the younger man.

"Too late, I got first dibs."

Greg pouted a bit, before exclaiming just as energetically as the first time:

"Fine, I play the winner between Sara and Nick!"

Nick glanced at him.

"How do you know Sara's going to beat Grissom?"

"Cause she just did, duh."

Nick looked back at the table to see that Sara had, in fact, beat Grissom rather thoroughly. Grissom shrugged thoughtfully.

"I'm better at chess."

Sara had already turned the board so that she and Nick could play, and the game commenced. The four at the table idly chatted back and forth; while Sara systematically beat Nick…in the end even worse then she'd ended up beating Grissom.

Greg happily pulled the board towards him…and commenced to completely kick Sara's ass at the game. Grissom and Nick were rather shocked, considering that she'd beaten them both by a mile. Sara merely shrugged, mirroring Grissom's earlier response. She recognized a superior player when she met one, and Greg was definitely good at this game.

Nick immediately challenged Greg, determined to beat the lab rat. Sadly, that wasn't going to happen…

Sara had begun to pack up the game, placing all the gems to one side of the board, when Nick asked Greg:

"How the hell did you get so good at that?"

Greg grinned cheekily back at him.

"I was the grand champion for four straight years of all six dorms in college."

Sara laughed at Nick's annoyance, and even Grissom grinned at the younger man's impertinence. Sighing, Nick stood up and excused himself as he had a rather large stack of paperwork waiting for him and one could only procrastinate on that stuff for so long. Warrick stuck his head in the break room and barked at Greg to get his skinny white ass back in the lab and help process the DNA he and Catherine had found at the crime scene they'd been out at. Greg proceeded to make a hasty exit.

Grissom and Sara still sat across from each other at the table. They sat in a comfortable silence, neither really wanting to be the one who had to break the friendly tableau by leaving to pursue work. Sara picked up her coffee cup; only to discover the liquid inside was cold when she took a sip. She stood up to get a refill, and Grissom's cell phone rang.

He answered it, and Sara could tell that it was Brass. Apparently the night was going to be not as slow as she thought. She set her cup on the counter and started out of the break room. Grissom hung up as she crossed the threshold of the door, and she turned back to look at him.

"Want Nick and I to meet you at the truck?"

Grissom nodded and stood, closing the distance between them until they were standing side by side.

"We've got two dead bodies in Sunset Heights."

She smiled at him and strode quickly down the hallway to get Nick, who'd be happy for the diversion from the dreaded paperwork. Just another night in the lives of the CSIs of Las Vegas…

So, yeah, tell me if that completely sucked…or you could totally boost my ego and say I'm a fabulously talented writer with a wonderful grasp on the characters. Hmm…as added incentive, I do hand out chocolate chip cookies for good reviews…and I AM a good baker. Or I could always just read and review your story in return…do I sound desperate yet? Come on, the GO box is calling to you (actually, that'd be creepy, but you get the gist of what I'm saying…). Hasta luego, mi amigos!


End file.
